A Regettable Event at the Tanneries Railway Junction, July 13th, 1878

Fear of a riot on July 12, 1878, between Montreal's Irish Catholics and Protestant Orangemen, the latter planning to celebrate the annual anniversary of the 1690's Battle of the Boyne, led Montreal's mayor, Jean Louis Beaudry, to issue a proclamation that "no assemblage or gathering of people shall be allowed in the streets or elsewhere in the city" on the so-called Glorious 12th. Five hundred "special" constables were sworn in to augment the city's police to keep the peace. As well, 2,500 to 3,000 regular and militia troops were mobilized, including the 53rd (Sherbrooke) militia battalion. No serious incidents happened on July 12th between the city's Green and Orange Irish factions. On July 13th, the Sherbrooke battalion left the city by rail, but their train was shunted to a siding at the Tanneries railway junction in St-Henri, across from a field where a lacrosse match was underway, watched by more than a hundred spectators. One team was wearing green scarves as part of its uniform. The author describes the conflicting accounts in Montreal's English- and French-language newspapers of what happened. What everyone agrees with is that the bored, predominately Protestant militia opened fire on the lacrosse players and spectators, firing forty to sixty rounds into the crowd, after taunts were exchanged back-and-forth. Three boys and two men were wounded before order was restored.